Tag Archives | government

Speaking at the third edition of the Global Business Summit yesterday, Prime Minister Hariri claimed that one of the priorities he set for his new government is to increase the internet speed in Lebanon by 20-fold.

His promise is a bit vague to be honest and no further explanation was given for us to know what exactly is going to increase 20 times, is it the average internet speed that households are currently gettings (20 x 2Mbps) or is it the overall capacity provided to ISPs in order to enhance our connection quality?

We all know there was a plan by minister Harb in 2015 to overhaul the current infrastructure in order to allow us to benefit from better speeds, but the upgrade was set to be completed in 2020… and knowing that Hariri’s government is supposed to only serve until the next parliament elections in 9 months, I’m not really sure how is he going to fulfill his promise while slow-speed copper wires are still used to connect us to central offices.

Anyway, when it comes to internet, I prefer to remain a bit optimistic because we really need a better connection so bad, not only for personal use but because the infrastructure upgrade will definitely have a positive impact on our economy. And in all cases, no matter what the government plans are, I hope they start by getting rid of Abdel Menhem Youssef first!

The Ministry of Public Health released their new website and mobile app a few days ago, and among the new services they now offer is a listing of the available drugs in Lebanon along with their official prices so you can compare them with the prices set by your local pharmacy and know if you’re being overcharged, in addition to the ability to compare a certain drug to its available alternatives having the same formula.

This is definitely a good step forward by the ministry to identify the pharmacies that do not abide by the set prices, and ensure that consumers are getting their medicine at a fair price.

Following the huge decrease in gasoline prices during the last year, there has been a lot of talk about the possibility for he government to fix the price at 22,000L.L per 20 liters or introduce a new tax of 5,000L.L to increase the revenue, but it was claimed a couple of months ago that the cabinet is not going to approve such thing and we all got relieved.

However, it seems like the tax is going to be gradually imposed one way or another. Over the past 3 weeks, the price of gasoline has increased by 1,700L.L even though the price of crude oil decreased from $41.5 to $38.3 over the same period.

What’s also worse is that the media is not reaching out to the ministry of energy to inquire about these increases, but you really can’t blame them when Ahlam and Adel Karam are keeping them busy with their nonsense…!

According to the latest transparency report published by Twitter, Lebanon is now among the countries that are requesting account information from them, as it has requested information about a few accounts somewhere between July and December 2013.

So if you’re planning to use Twitter to plot some evil plan, you now know the platform isn’t safe anymore!

Believe or not, Kherbet Selem, a small village in south Lebanon, now enjoys 24/7 electricity after it used to suffer from up to 12 hours power cuts!

The municipality there simply bought its own diesel generators that switch on automatically when the power cuts, and the village is now having 24/7 electricity for the first time in history. So basically that’s the only place in Lebanon that feels like the rest of the world!

Meanwhile, our government has been failing to fix the electricity sector in Lebanon for more than 20 years now, and will definitely keep on doing so for at least the next 200 years.

As you all know, and in order to stop mobile phones smuggling in Lebanon, the ministry of telecommunications is now requiring all traders to register the IMEI (a unique ID assigned to each mobile device) of every legally imported mobile phone or tablet.

The collected IMEIs will then be used as of today June 1st to filter the devices that are allowed access to our mobile networks (alfa and touch). So typically speaking, a legally imported mobile phone with its due taxes paid will be allowed to connect to the mobile networks, while other smuggled ones will be denied access since their unique identifiers are not registered at the ministry.

The weakest ring in the process is of course the group of people who will be responsible of the data entry of the registered IMEIs. Since they will be easily able to register and IMEI of some untaxed mobile if there was not much control over them.

As a result, mobile phone prices ended up notably increasing over the last week. For instance, the guy who sold me my mobile was listing the iPhone 16 GB for around $650 since mid-May I guess, then he increased the price 2 days ago to $745. Logically due to the fact that the handsets he’s currently offering were legally imported and subject to some import tax.

Everybody is eventually complaining about all of this, especially that it gets a bit complicated when you buy some used handset from abroad. And I know it’s wrong to complain about a price increase when it’s a result of complying with the government taxation rules, but still, a $100 increase totally sucks!

According to an article on Now Lebanon and another on Beirut Report, it seems like the post I wrote back in March on the new highway in Achrafieh connecting Hazmieh to Charles Helou is true, since the project has already been given a green light and works might start in a month or so.

And ever since the news was spread, “Save Beirut Heritage” has been opposing the project as it requires destroying 28 old buildings. But how true is that?

I mean let’s assume each building has only 3 to 4 families living in it, then the government should currently be in the process of buying a minimum of 90 apartments in order to later destroy them and be able to go forward with the project. But 90 isn’t a small number, that’s 90 families who can easily coordinate a protest or at least appear on TV to oppose being evacuated from their apartments, which is not the case right now.

That means the number of buildings is either much lower than 28, and therefore a large chunk of the highway will be underground, or the government is offering a really large sum of money for the families and they’re simply happy with it.

And let’s be real for a moment, the highway might be seriously endangering Beirut’s heritage, but old buildings in the areas of Achrafieh and Mar Mkhayel are rapidly disappearing anyway to make way for high rise towers! So are we over-reacting a little bit here..?

Anyway, I personally don’t really see the need to connect Charles Helou with Hazmieh through a highway passing by Achrafieh, since there’s already another highway connecting Hazmieh to Karantina which is pretty close to Charles Helou!

This is hilarious! I’ve been searching for some PDF version of this book ever since Bassam Abou Zaid tweeted about it a few days ago, and just last night, he made a news report about it. The Lebanese ministry of energy and water published a comic book called “A nation’s dream” starring minister Gibran Bassil and his son, telling a story that takes place in 2020 after we became an oil-producing country.

The story starts with Gibran Bassil and his son boarding a metro from Batroun towards Beirut passing by all the projects that Bassil has started, from dams to gas pipes and Beirut’s solar snake, then shows how Zouk became much less polluted and how the public dump in Dora turned into some touristic destination. The story then ends with Gibran Bassil telling how proud he feels to be among the few people who actually contributed into realizing the dreams of this country!

I’m not sure who advises minister Gibran Bassil on such things, but is he/she effing serious?! Morever, I wish the story has started by telling how exactly did Bassil accepted handing over the ministry of energy to someone else.

I totally loved the sarcastic comment by Bassam Abou Zaid at the end of the report by the way.

I got this SMS from OMT a few days ago informing me that my mecanique fees which are due this month can be paid at some of their branches.

While I know this makes one’s life easier, I can’t but wonder how did OMT know my mecanique fees are due this month? And how exactly did they get hold of my phone number? It’s clear they have a deal with the ministry of finance, but that doesn’t justify giving them such kind of confidential data for marketing purposes!

I’m sure some employees at OMT can make copies of these data, so don’t be surprised if you find them online anytime soon.